The Doctor Who RPG has shown Cubicle 7 has the know-how to do a licensed RPG well, so it should be no surprise the company has pursued other significant licenses. The RPG licenses don’t get much bigger than what Cubicle 7 and Sophisticated Games have just announced: The One Ring – The Lord of the Rings Role-Playing Game. The two companies are jointly developing the license, which was last in the hands of Decipher. Click below for more details, or just wait until late this year and be surprised.
Cubicle 7 press release follows:
Cubicle 7 & Sophisticated Games announced The One Ring: The Lord of the Rings® Role-playing Game
PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release.
Cubicle 7 Entertainment and Sophisticated Games are proud to announce that they are jointly developing The One Ring: The Lord of the Rings® Role-playing Game.
“We’re tremendously excited about The One Ring,” said Dominic McDowall-Thomas, Cubicle 7 Director. “Our aim is to give our audience an authentic Middle-earth gaming experience, one that really captures the feel of Tolkien’s world.”
The designer and lead writer of this project, Francesco Nepitello, is a games industry veteran, best known for the hugely successful and critically acclaimed War of the Ring strategy board game, which he designed with The One Ring co-designer Marco Maggi and Roberto di Meglio. A recipient of the International Gamers Award, War of the Ring is recognised by many ‘Lord of the Rings’ enthusiasts and hobby gamers alike as one of the most engaging recreations of the world-renowned fantasy saga by J.R.R. Tolkien. Francesco and Marco are the designers of other immersive board game titles like Marvel Super Heroes and Age of Conan, but started their game-designing careers creating Lex Arcana, the most successful and popular fantasy role-playing game published in Italy.
Francesco has designed the new LOTR RPG game system to make sure that players are completely immersed in Middle-earth from the moment they begin creating their characters. As an experienced designer of games based on JRR Tolkien, as well as being a lifelong devotee of the Tolkien works, Francesco brings a dimension -and a depth- to this RPG which has probably never been seen before in a LOTR game.
Robert Hyde, head of Cambridge (UK) based Sophisticated Games said, “When we first acquired the rights from Tolkien Enterprises to publish this RPG – as part of our wider LOTR book based board game license- we had no hesitation in approaching Francesco to conceive a completely fresh LOTR and The Hobbit RPG, and for him to be the writer. We knew that he possessed both these skills and that the game would be in very safe hands. His presentation of Middle-earth, along with stunning artwork from John Howe and others, brings this incredibly evocative and exciting world to life.”
“We also approached Cubicle 7 to be our publishing partners on the new The One Ring RPG because we loved the quality of their previous publications and felt that Dominic and Angus (Abranson) had both the experience, and with the creation of Cubicle 7, the role playing game resources, to bring LOTR and The Hobbit to a very wide audience.”
For more information on The One Ring: The Lord of the Rings® Role-playing Game please contact Cubicle 7 on info@cubicle7.co.uk
The One Ring: The Lord of the Rings® Role-playing Game will be published in the second half of 2010.
About Cubicle 7 Entertainment Limited
Cubicle 7 Entertainment is a British-based publisher and events company, specialising in the games industry. Founded in 2006, by Angus Abranson and Dominic McDowall-Thomas, the company has published role-playing games from a list of licensed and home-grown properties including Victoriana, Starblazer Adventure (based on DC Thomson’s 80’s Starblazer comic series), SLA Industries, Qin: The Warring States and the recent Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space (licensed from the BBC). In June 2009 Cubicle 7 announced it had joined the Rebellion Group.
Cubicle 7 Entertainment: http://www.cubicle7.co.uk
About Sophisticated Games
Sophisticated Games is an international board game publisher, specialising in book based Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit games. It is also the publisher of Reiner Knizia’s Ingenious and Callisto, and has recently done Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, Shakespeare and a Horrible Histories game. Sophisticated Games is based in Cambridge UK.
Sophisticated Games: http://www.sophisticated-games.com
The One Ring, Middle-earth, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and the characters, items, events and places therein are trademarks or registered trademarks of the Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Middle-earth Enterprises f/k/a Tolkien Enterprises and are used under license by Sophisticated Games Ltd and their licensees.
Wonder how different C7’s version will be from Decipher’s. I know guys who still play it sometimes.
I want this game to be good. I really do. But what can they do that Decipher and Iron Crown didn’t? Especially Iron Crown with its EXTENSIVE library of MERP books. Any rumors as to what this game is about, what the characters do, and what the players do?
Peace,
-Troy